


No Reason to Panic

by RedTeamShark



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Author Chose Not To Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2019-09-12 03:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16865692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: Joel really needs to stop over-analyzing things. Geoff might be able to help him out, though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Proper warnings, tags, etc, may come in the future. For the time being I'm frantically transferring my content to a stable platform amidst growing concerns about tumblr's inevitable implosion.
> 
> Apologies for flooding the fandom page.

“Geoff. We need to go to the bar tonight.”

“Dude, I can’t, my kid has a school thing.”

“Get your wife to do it. We  _need_  to go to the bar tonight.”

The tattooed Achievement Hunter raised a single eyebrow. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you at the bar.” Joel stood in the doorway of his office at five minutes before five, the two of them the only ones currently in the office. Almost everyone else had already wrapped up their work and left for the day. Geoff was seconds away from refusing and leaving to attend said ‘school thing’ that his daughter had, but a more careful look at the dark-haired man in the doorway made him reconsider.

Slightly out of breath and flushed, hair a mess like he’d been running his hands through it, trembling slightly. A reaction that was a bit too calm to be an economic problem, which meant it was a personal problem. Joel had come to him with whatever problem he was having, there was also that to consider. With a sigh, Geoff grabbed his phone and sent a quick text, before turning to his friend and co-worker.

“Which bar?”

–

For a long time after Joel finished his rambling, tangent-prone explanation, Geoff simply stared at him. He lifted his beer, half-drank, to his mouth and finished it quickly before setting the glass down with a  _bang_.

“You dragged me out here over a gay panic?”

“It’s a serious issue!”

“A serious issue is that you keep shouting and people are staring at us.” Geoff sighed, reaching up and rubbing his temples. “Why is this even a problem?”

“Because I’m not gay!”

“You’re still shouting.” Leaning back in his chair, Geoff caught the eye of the waitress and signaled for her to bring another beer. “So what if you like him? It’s not the end of the world. And you’re not gay just because you have a man-crush on  _one_  guy.”

“But he’s like half my age!” Joel was apparently intent on shouting about his problems and apparently still convinced that it  _was_  the end of the world.

“And? You’re both adults; it really doesn’t matter after that.” Geoff took his beer from the waitress, returning her smile as he took a drink.

“He’s younger than me but he’s…  _bigger_  than me and—“

“You’ve seen him naked?”

Joel nearly flipped the table over, slamming his hands onto it. “ _No!_  I mean that he’s taller and has broader shoulders and—and he’s just bigger like that! I haven’t seen him naked!”

“Why does that matter, though?”

“Because I’m older!”

Geoff sighed, kicking the other man under the table. “You’re talking in circles. He’s bigger than you, so what? That’s unimportant, just like the age thing is unimportant. And liking one guy does not automatically make you gay—at the absolute most I’d say it makes you bisexual,  _maybe_ , more just… curious than anything. So literally everything that you’re thinking is a problem here? Not a problem. Christ, dude. Where’d this whole ‘gay panic’ thing even come from?”

A few moments of silence sat between them, Joel staring into his mostly-empty beer. Finally, he looked up, running a hand through his hair and sighing. “So we did that motherfucking Dead Rising 3 video where we each held half of the controller, right? And we never really…  _told_  anyone about how we managed that. Well, you see, I fuckin’ sat on his lap because he’s fuckin’  _bigger_  than I am and it worked out just fuckin’ fine we each had a hand on the controller and it was great.” The combination of alcohol and rushed speech seemed to be getting to Joel, his words blurring together a bit, interspersed with frequent cusses. “And so we’re fucking playing this fucking game and all of a sudden I realize that there’s something really fucking warm right on my fucking thigh and I look down and it’s his motherfucking  _hand_ just resting on my motherfucking  _thigh_  all casual like it’s no fuckin’ deal! And I shoulda been all ‘Adam move your hand’ but instead I was all ‘well actually this feels really fuckin’ nice’ and didn’t make him move his hand and he sorta… squeezed? And  _that_  felt nice too but then I realized what was fuckin’ happening and he realized what he was fuckin’ doing and moved his hand except now I can’t stop motherfucking thinking about his motherfucking hand on my motherfucking thigh and—“

“Dude, who gives a fuck? So you liked his hand on your thigh, that doesn’t make you gay.”

Joel slammed his hands onto the table again, standing up. “I’m also thinking about kissing him! Does  _that_  make me gay?!” He shouted, drawing stares from the other patrons, unaware of it. He was focused on Geoff, leaning over the table and just daring the other man to contradict him.

Rather than answer, the heavily-tattooed man only laughed. “You’re an idiot. Sit down.”

Reluctantly taking his seat again and finishing his beer, Joel buried his head in his hands. “You’re not helping me. You’re the opposite of helping me.”

Geoff leaned over, setting a hand on his shoulder. “I told you already. Liking one dude does not automatically make you gay. It doesn’t even make you bi. It just means that you like someone. So… why not? Talk to him about it and see where it goes.”

“I can’t talk to him about it!” Joel exclaimed, looking up, expression pained. “That’s the worst idea ever!”

“So you want to be the sketchy old man that has a fantasy about a twenty-something but never talks about it? He’s the one that put his hand on your thigh, maybe he’s into you, too.”

“He’s not into me.” Joel sighed, burying his head in his arms on the table. “There’s no way he’d be into me.”

“Never know if you don’t try, man.” Geoff finished his second beer, sighing. “Look, the only thing I can really say that you  _have_  to do is accept for yourself that, hey, you might like a guy and that it’s definitely not a big deal. Having the hots for someone doesn’t change who  _you_ are, no matter who  _they_  are.”

With a groan, Joel finally looked up again. “How are you so good at this when you’re younger than me?”

“Because I’m a grown-up and you’re not.” Geoff shrugged, getting to his feet. “Look, I’m gonna go home now. You want a lift back to the office?”

Also standing, Joel nodded with slumped shoulders. “Yeah, may as well. I still have to edit the video Adam and I did today.”

“Hey, maybe he’ll be there waiting for you to confess your love to him.” Geoff noted with a grin, whistling innocently at Joel’s slack-jawed look of surprise.

“Geoff I swear to god if you fucking texted him…”

“Joel, please, I’d  _never_  do something like that.”

Gay panic at least partially abated, Joel suddenly became light-headed with a new kind of panic. A kind he termed ‘having to face a problem panic.’ It was just as worrying as every other sort of panic and really made him wish that he’d gone with Jack to talk about this.


	2. The Perfect Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out talking about something while drunk is different from doing something while sober.

For a few days after his evening in the bar with Geoff, nothing unusual happened. Everyone was busy with production work for their various projects and he didn’t even have time to contemplate doing another recording with the younger man. So, Joel let his worries about that take a back seat to other, more pressing issues. He saw the raised eyebrows Geoff gave him over coffee cups during the Monday meetings, but what was he supposed to do? Go out of his way to deal with a problem?

Things didn’t really escalate until Caiti came by the office with Emma, the two stopping up to chat with Joel until the Achievement Hunters were done recording their morning line-up of content.

Petting the enthusiastic dog with equal enthusiasm, Joel glanced up at Caiti, an idea coming to him. She was married to Jack, it was reasonable that she’d probably kissed him at some point. Hell, Joel had even seen her kiss him, he was pretty sure. It wouldn’t hurt to ask her… “Hey, Caiti?”

“Yeah, Joel?”

“What’s it like to kiss a guy with a beard?”

Caiti was quiet just long enough that he started to worry, already wracking his brain for a subject to change to. Before Joel could come up with something, she sighed. “Please don’t make out with my husband.”

The dark-haired man started, shaking his head quickly. “No, no, not Jack. God, no. I mean that in the best possible way, but  _god no_.”

“I think I should be offended, but why ask about it? Is there some other—“ Her eyes lit up suddenly and she glanced down, as if able to see through the floor to the offices below. “Someone  _else_  with a beard you’re thinking about kissing?”

“Are all Australians this perceptive, or are you a special case?” Joel sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Look, it’s nothing, forget I asked.”

Caiti’s phone buzzed with a text message and she checked the device quickly, getting to her feet. “Well, alright. C’mon, Emma, it’s time to go to lunch.” She paused at the doorway, smiling. “I’ll see you later, Joel. And to answer your question… kinda tickly, but it’s nice.”

Joel buried his head in his arms, sighing. And now he was going to get to spend the rest of the day thinking about  _that_.

–

Four days later on the podcast, Jack brought up the videos Joel had been making with Adam.

Seated across from Burnie—Gus being absent that week had caused some interesting arrangements—with Jack and Gavin on the couch, Joel had only nodded.

“It’s nice to have the Let’s Play channel,” the bearded man continued, pausing just long enough to take a swallow of his drink, “because it lets other people at the company produce content like that, besides just Achievement Hunter. You guys—“ he gestured to Burnie “—did the podcast let’s plays and Joel, you and Adam have been doing those videos. And people are clamoring for more.”

Joel only nodded, taking another quick swallow of his drink. He hadn’t made a video with Adam in a few weeks, blaming busy schedules over admitting that he was chickening out.

“The side-shows don’t get as many views as the big stuff with the six of you, though. I mean, look at Minecraft. Gavin, how long does it take a Minecraft video to hit a certain milestone in views—say, 100,000?” Burnie asked, nodding to the Brit.

“A hundred thousand we usually have by Monday morning, I think.”

“Monday?” Burnie scoffed. “Try  _Saturday_  morning. Even when you guys brought in the new channel, I remember watching the analytics with Geoff, seeing the views on the main RoosterTeeth channel spiking on Friday, and then they just dropped off right about at the same time the views on your first channel-exclusive Minecraft spiked.”

Jack nodded with a smile. “It’s nice to have the side content, though. Achievement Hunter doesn’t do a lot on the weekends besides when Michael wants to record a Full Play. And on Thursdays we only have Versus, which isn’t necessarily a long show. It’s nice to have the extra content by other people to fill in the gap. When Joel and Adam release a Let’s Play of their own, it gives people a half-hour or more of extra content on Thursday.”

“Yeah…” Joel took another drink, leaning back. “Adam and I have to get back on that.”

Gavin snickered and Joel shot him a look, hoping that neither act had been picked up on camera. When Burnie pushed the top of his laptop down and leaned forward, however, looking the dark-haired man over seriously, he could feel the trouble brewing.

“I’ve always wondered, and I guess you two haven’t told anyone. How did you manage the shared controller in the Dead Rising 3 video?”

“Oh, you know…” Joel waved a hand dismissively, shrugging. “Trade secret.”

“I bet you sat on his lap, J-roll.” Gavin noted with another laugh. “The one time Michael and I tried to co-op with one controller like that, it was the only thing we could think of. And we decided not to do it, because he’d probably either make me go deaf from yelling in my ear, or else dump me on the floor. Oh hey, speaking of, did you guys hear about our swimmie bevs this weekend?” And like that, the subject was dropped. Joel wasn’t willing to admit his gratitude.

–

Geoff cornered him in his office Tuesday morning, leaning on the door and smirking. “Hey, we’re a little light on content this week, Joel. Think you and Adam will have time to film something for us? He already said that he can manage it, so don’t let us down, okay?”

“I fucking hate you. Did you tell Gavin about the Dead Rising 3 thing?” Joel buried his head in his hands, sighing.

“Didn’t breathe a word of it, I know better. He’d never keep his mouth shut about it. But c’mon, there’s only so many possible answers and him and Michael have tried stuff like that before.”

“I’ll see what I can do today, okay?” Which, of course, meant that he’d get it done and edited and ready for posting by Thursday. Joel sent a quick instant message to Adam, letting him know when he was free and inviting the younger man up to record when he had a chance.

Unfortunately, Adam was upstairs fifteen minutes later, apparently not aware that Joel needed at least an hour to mentally prepare for facing… Whatever it even was that he was facing. A crush on a guy? That seemed too juvenile—he was 42, not 12—but how else did he describe it? How else did he define the warmth that Adam’s friendly hand on his shoulder was, or the butterflies that took to wing in his stomach when the younger man grinned at him and high-fived him over some in-game accomplishment.

(And goddammit, how did he even begin to make logical sense of the fact that he  _liked_  that Adam was bigger than him and made him think of a giant protective teddy bear when he couldn’t even think it without wanting to smash his face into a wall?)

The two settled behind the desk, audio equipment set up and office door shut tightly against potential noise pollution. With the laptop in front of them, they scrolled through Adam’s game library.

“We could keep working on Outlast?” The bearded man suggested.

“Fuck that.” Joel vetoed immediately, drawing out the words. “You want me to have a fucking heart attack?”

“Oh, don’t be a wimp. How about we play… hmm…” Adam frowned, scratching the side of his face absently. “Ah, I’ve been playing this one called Jazzpunk lately, it’s pretty fun. I can walk you through how to play it, instead of a co-op thing.”

Fidgeting his fingers against the desk but knowing he had no better ideas, Joel nodded. “Sure. Sure, that sounds good.” He agreed, rolling his chair closer, trying not to think about how close behind him Adam was sitting. Trying not to think about the warm breath on his cheek and the deep voice giving instructions in his ear.

Goddammit.

They recorded without much incident and Joel set to saving the footage so that he could get the edit going, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. His eyes slid closed, hands reaching up to scrub against his face. “I’ll try to get this edited as soon as possible so that you can check it over before I send it down for upload.” He muttered, peeking at the other man between his fingers. He sighed, dragging his hands down his face slowly. “Adam.”

“Joel.” Adam leaned back in his chair, one eyebrow raised.

“You are just completely unfair, you know that?”

A snort of laughter from the other man, as he shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but alright.”

“I mean that you’re fuckin’…  _you_  and I’m me and that’s not fair. It’s not fair that you have warm hands and broad shoulders and a deep voice and you’re like twelve feet tall and—“ He cut himself off, shaking his head. “What the fuck am I even saying.”

“You’re either complimenting me or complaining about me. Not sure which.” Adam leaned forward in his chair, frowning. “But as long as we’re un the subject of unfair, I’ll tell you what’s unfair. Watching you wreck yourself over something that’s seriously not a big deal is completely unfair.”

Joel’s mouth fell open and he blinked several times in a row. “Wait. What?”

“It’s not a big deal. Unless I’m completely reading the signals wrong, in which case I probably sound like a creep, but…” He waved a hand, almost dismissive. “Well, I mean, just so you know and stuff, it’s not a big deal.”

Frowning, considering what the other man was saying, Joel also leaned forward. “How much of a ‘not a big deal’ are we talking?”

“Maybe you’d like me to demonstrate?”

Turned out, Joel never had a perfect reason to panic.


End file.
